His partner’s life crises, the children’s sicknesses, meals, birthdays—nothing else matters as much as his feelings.

It is not his feelings the abuser is too distant from; it is his partner’s feelings and his children’s feelings. Those are the emotions that he knows so little about and that he needs to “get in touch with.” My job as an abuse counselor often involves steering the discussion away from how my clients feel

Your abusive partner wants to deny your experience. He wants to pluck your view of reality out of your head and replace it with his.

he has to harm his partner in order to protect her; only abusers think this way.